I was at the dentist the other day, getting a filling replaced. The sound of the drill always makes me anxious, so in addition to a good shot of lidocaine, they also gave me some nitrous oxide, through a breathing device over my nose. Man, that stuff is weird and not particularly pleasant! Within moments of inhaling, I was experiencing tunnel vision, spots before my eyes and a feeling of slipping away from reality. After about five or ten minutes, I found it so unpleasant that I had to wave to the dentist and let him know that we could continue without the gas. I know a lot of people find it very relaxing and feel giddy with it, but it was making me even more anxious from the sense of loss of control (I don’t miss the irony too that I’m into bondage but have this deep sense of anxiety over losing control). I’d forgotten how strange nitrous is, but I do remember taking it once as a child, and the dentist’s face looked like it was three feet high, and I had a sensation of falling backwards into the dental chair, which was expanding like a big marshmallow to swallow me up. As a child, I didn’t have the confidence to say that’s enough, so at the time I just endured the weirdness.

I’ve always been very sensitive to drugs, which often made it hard for me to enjoy smoking pot when I would occasionally do it years ago. Sometimes it would be pleasant, but more often than not, I would get anxious and paranoid. Or I would have this experience where all my worst judgmental thoughts about others and my own deep doubts about myself would come to the forefront, as though they were hanging right there in front of my forehead and I couldn’t look away. Not a pleasant experience, so I never did pot that often, and haven’t done anything like that in quite a few years now.